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Forty-six sailboats raced through the ocean off the coast of Wrightsville Beach on July 16–17 during sailing’s Atlantic Coast Championship, hosted for the first time since 2013 by the Carolina Yacht Club.
The event drew some of the best sailors in the country from as far away as Lake Michigan. Eight Carolina Yacht Club teams also took part. Crews earned points based on their order of finish in five races throughout the weekend.
A crew of college students from Norfolk, Virginia, came out on top. They were one of this year’s recipients of the International Lightning Class Association’s boat grant, a program designed to help young sailors compete at sailing’s highest level by awarding them a boat and paying their travel expenses for one racing season.
John Sawyer, Atlantic Coast Championship regatta director, said this was the first time in the boat grant program’s 10-year history that its recipients won such a prestigious regatta.
The students beat out one of the best sailors in the country, Greg Fisher, for the title. Fisher, sailing with his wife and daughter, came in second.
Third- and fourth-place crews were also families. Wisconsin’s Todd Wake formed a crew with his 17-year-old son Doug Wake and Doug’s friend Noah Bartelt, both of whom are competing in the Youth World Championship in Ecuador July 23–27. A father, son and friend from Charleston, South Carolina, crewed the boat that finished fourth.
Conditions were decent for the races, Sawyer said. Dark clouds threatened at times, but Sawyer’s race committee arranged for 33 volunteers on 10 powerboats to patrol the races, ready to tow the sailboats to shore quickly if thunderstorms should form.
A few sailors had hoped for more wind, Sawyer said, especially on Saturday, when “it was lumpy — there were waves and some chop, and not really enough wind to get through it very easily.”
Each race lasted about 75 minutes, with sailors racing back and forth between two buoys. Participation was limited to the boats of the Lightning Class — 19-foot crafts sailed by three-man crews and noted for their colorful spinnaker sails unfurled when sailing downwind.
Organizers held three races Saturday and two Sunday. After Saturday’s races, Sawyer said, “Everybody was pretty worn out.”
Saturday evening, the sailors rested from the day’s races at a barbecue buffet. They also socialized Friday night, gathering for drinks and hors d’oeuvres at the Carolina Yacht Club. “Southern hospitality,” Sawyer said, is one reason the Carolina Yacht Club was chosen to host both the 2016 Atlantic Coast Championship and the 2017 North American Championship.
The water off Wrightsville Beach’s coast is also a good location to race Lightning boats, which are best sailed in the open ocean, Sawyer said. During the summer, the location benefits from a predictable sea breeze of 10–15 mph winds every afternoon, he added.
“It’s just great conditions for sailing,” he said.
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